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Race against time to find Assad’s stockpile of chemical weapons | Avi Melamed quoted by Taryn Pedler in the article For Daily Mail.
source article here >>
Former Israeli intelligence official and regional analyst Avi Melamed told MailOnline: ‘Rebel groups in Syria are unlikely to directly confront Israel due to Syria’s need for reconstruction and Israel’s military strength. However, emerging threats from radical Sunni groups in northern Syria remain a possibility.
‘The collapse of the Assad regime is reshaping the region’s security dynamics, alleviating some key threats to Israel… but Israel remains vigilant and prepared to act decisively to safeguard its security.’
Israel and the US are involved in a race against time to find and destroy Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s stockpile of toxic chemical weapons in a bid to stop them ‘falling into the hands of extremists’.
Rebel forces ousted the tyrant after taking control of the capital, Damascus, on Sunday – the latest chapter in a bloody civil war that started in 2011 and saw the country spiral into a hub for violence and brutality.
Assad, known for his cruel tactics, previously faced calls for international military action against his government after launching chemical weapons attacks against his own people in the suburbs of the Syrian capital in 2013.
Then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the August 21 attack ‘the worst use of weapons of mass destruction in the 21st century,’ with the death toll reaching over a staggering 1,400.
Now that Assad and members of his family have reportedly fled Syria to Moscow, Israel and the US have began launching attacks on the country’s chemical weapons depots and ISIS camps.
On Monday, Israeli warplanes struck suspected chemical weapons storage facilities in the Middle Eastern nation, the country’s foreign minister confirmed.
Gideon Sa’ar said they attacked ‘in order that they (the weapons) will not fall in the hands of extremists’ following the collapse of Assad’s regime.
Meanwhile, the US Central Command announced it had conducted ‘dozens of precision airstrikes’ that were designed to eliminate ISIS camps in central Syria on Sunday.
The US are working alongside several other countries in the Middle East to prevent chemical weapons from ending up in the wrong hands, a US official told reporters.
Following the Sunday attack, US President Joe Biden said: ‘We will support Syria’s neighbors – Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Israel – from any threat that could arise from Syria’.
Secretary if State Anthony Blinked defiantly added: ‘We will support international efforts to hold the Assad regime and its backers accountable for atrocities and abuses perpetrated against the Syrian people, including the use of chemical weapons.
A war monitor revealed on Tuesday that Israel had conducted some 300 strikes on Syria since Assad’s fall, claiming that the raids had ‘destroyed the most important military sites’ in the country.
Footage released on Monday showed severe damage at Mazzeh military airport on the outskirts of Damascus, including destroyed aircraft, where the Israeli military struck nearby weapons depots.
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was using ‘all the tools it has’ to ensure its security after the ‘change in the Syrian leadership’ has left the country with a power vacuum.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said it had reminded Syria of its responsibility to secure any of its remaining stockpiles, but also addressed ‘serious concerns’ about the ‘fate of significant amounts of chemical weapons unaccounted for’.
Syria declared 1,300 tons of banned chemical weapons after joining the OPCW in 2013.
The weapons were destroyed, but weapons inspectors have since found evidence of an ongoing programme that violated the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention overseen by the OPCW.
A team at OPCW has spent more than a decade trying to clarify what types of chemical weapons Syria still possesses, but has made little progress due to obstruction by Assad’s government, it said.
‘To date, this work has continued, and the Syrian declaration of its chemical weapons programme still cannot be considered as accurate and complete,’ the OPCW statement said.
A diplomatic source said Assad’s government had been ‘playing cat and mouse with us for years’ and that ‘we are convinced that they still had an ongoing programme.’
‘It costs millions and millions of dollars without making any progress,’ said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
‘So it really is a great opportunity now to get rid of (chemical weapons) for good. This is the moment.’
The strikes came as Israel ordered the ‘complete’ seizure of a demilitarised buffer zone on its border with Syria, and did not rule out storming further into the now rebel-occupied country.
The foreign minister said that the IDF sent a few hundred troops to firm up its presence along the demilitarised zone separating the Israeli occupied Golan Heights from Syria, but stressed Israel did not want to meddle in Syria’s internal affairs.
‘It’s basically near our borders, sometimes a few hundred metres, sometimes one mile or two miles,’ he said. ‘It is a very limited and temporary step we took for security reasons.’
Former Israeli intelligence official and regional analyst Avi Melamed told MailOnline: ‘Rebel groups in Syria are unlikely to directly confront Israel due to Syria’s need for reconstruction and Israel’s military strength. However, emerging threats from radical Sunni groups in northern Syria remain a possibility.
‘The collapse of the Assad regime is reshaping the region’s security dynamics, alleviating some key threats to Israel… but Israel remains vigilant and prepared to act decisively to safeguard its security.’
But on Tuesday, an Israeli military spokesperson denied that Israeli forces had penetrated into Syrian territory beyond the buffer zone with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights after Syrian sources said the incursion had reached up to 25km from the capital Damascus.
‘It’s not true, the forces have not left the buffer zone,’ the spokesperson said.
Israeli foreign minister Sa’ar also confirmed that Israel was attacking the Syrian Army’s ‘advanced weaponry’, including chemical weapons, long-range missiles and rockets, to prevent them from falling into the hands of ‘extremists’.
A senior Israeli official told Reuters that the air strikes would continue over the coming days.
Sa’ar stressed that Israel had no interest in interfering in internal Syrian affairs and was concerned only with defending its citizens.
The international fight for the ridding of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile comes as Turkey-backed rebel forces took control of the northern city of Manbij.
The United States and Turkey reached an agreement to ensure the safe withdrawal of US-backed Kurdish Syrian forces (SDF) from Manbij after an advance by the Turkey-backed Syrian opposition group, a Syrian opposition source said on Monday.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, speaking separately in Anakra, said he welcomed the clearing out of ‘terrorists’ from Manbij, which the SDF had been holding in recent days amid fighting with the Syrian National Army (SNA) and other Turkey-backed groups.
The Kurdish fighters ‘have withdrawn from the city and still need to withdraw from the other areas’ east of Manbij, said the Syrian opposition source familiar with the matter.
Following the ousting of Assad – who ruled Syria with an iron fist for 24 years – he is now believed to be in Russia with his family after being granted asylum by President Vladimir Putin.
But Russia have now made diplomatic efforts to protect its military assets in the county as Moscow reached out to the country’s new rebel leadership after the collapse of Assad’s regime threatened Russia’s influence in the Middle East.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the Russian authorities were taking all ‘necessary steps to establish contact in Syria with those capable of ensuring the security of military bases’.
Earlier, a source in the Kremlin told Russian state media that the Syrian opposition leaders had agreed to guarantee the safety of Russian military bases and diplomatic institutions in Syria.
The two bases hold an outsized importance to Russia: the Tartus facility gives Vladimir Putin access to a warm water port, while Moscow has used the Khmeimim airbase as a post to fly its military contractors in and out of Africa.
The Kremlin offered little insight into the future of the bases, stating that it was too early to determine what lay ahead for its military presence in Syria.
Race against time to find Assad’s stockpile of chemical weapons | Avi Melamed quoted by Taryn Pedler in the article For Daily Mail.
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